Chiquita Held Liable for Funding Colombian Paramilitaries
June 13th, 2024Founded in 1899 in Boston, United Fruit quickly grew to be the dominant force in the region. In addition to the banana plantations and railway, it also ran the post office and the telegram service. By the 1930s, with a dictator in power, United Fruit had amassed hundreds of thousands of acres of Guatemalan land. It was the country’s single largest landowner. Its reach was so ubiquitous that people called the company El Pulpo — the octopus.
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The company Chiquita was formed out of a defunct United Fruit in the 1980s. It’s no longer a US company. It’s now based in Switzerland and owned by Brazilian firms. But, it is still a huge banana producer. And the brand is still everywhere in the United States.
Via: BBC:
A court in the United States has found multinational fruit company Chiquita Brands International liable for financing a Colombian paramilitary group.
The group, the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), was designated by the US as a terrorist organisation at the time.
Following a civil case brought by eight Colombian families whose relatives were killed by the AUC, Chiquita has been ordered to pay $38.3m (£30m) in damages to the families.
Chiquita said in a statement that it intended to appeal against the jury’s verdict, arguing that there was “no legal basis for the claims”.
The jury in the case, which was heard in a federal court in South Florida, found Chiquita responsible for the wrongful deaths of eight men killed by the AUC.
The AUC engaged in widespread human rights abuses in Colombia, including murdering people it suspected of links with left-wing rebels.
The victims ranged from trade unionists to banana workers.
In the 1950’s-70’s in South FL, there were newspaper articles from time to time about Chiquita running its banana plantation empire like something between an ante-bellum Southern plantation and a concentration camp. Workers who agitated for better treatment died. I know of no reason to assume that that management system ever changed. It worked.
The system also worked into the 1980’s-90’s in Africa where Mobil Oil had a big operation. Mobil had to face murder investigations, but I don’t recall that anything ever came of them.
So, where there is a poorly-educated populace, used to being dominated by para-military police under the control of an int’l business, they may have few civil rights and be more or less forced to labor. So maybe Chiquita will be planting in the US within another 50 years.
Chiquita claims to sell organic as well as GMO bananas. I guess the FDA certifies them as safe and effective or whatever.